Humber faculty union backs political student zine

Elizabeth Marculewicz turned a new page.

They were reflecting on the first issue of their Solidarity Zine the night before releasing the second at a walkout on Nov. 5.

Marculewicz, the zine’s editor, is also president of Humber Polytechnic’s new Political Action Club.

Though Solidarity Zine is not a club project, it shares a similar goal: to educate the student body on politics.

Marculewicz worked on the zine with friends over the summer.

They describe the Political Action Club as a way for students to use their voices independently from college organizations.

Marculewicz said they “take great pride in educating students.

“I wanted a tool that I could pass down to students as a summation of all the work that I’ve done in activism,” they said.

“The zine is really about amplifying student voices and amplifying student concerns,” Marculewicz said.

Sylvia Nowak, a volunteer at the Toronto Zine Library since 2018, said it’s hard to define a zine.

“Essentially, it is a publication created with a do-it-yourself ethos, so it is created by someone who cares about something,” Nowak said.

She said zines have been around for nearly a century, beginning with sci-fi fanzines in the 1930s.

Nowak said the popularity of zines “ebbs and flows.

“There’s been big moments around different kinds of musical scenes. The punk scene had a big resurgence of people creating different kinds of zines and the whole punk fanzine culture developed in the ‘70s,” she said.

Nowak said zines are often made by marginalized communities.

“But throughout, zines have always existed and it’s always something that will be created because people will always have this desire to have their independent, underground kind of publications,” she said.

“There was concerns that perhaps the internet would kill the zine, but it definitely hasn’t,” Nowak said.

Marculewicz said they started protesting OSAP cuts in March.

Marculewicz, also a student worker at the Humber Library’s Idea Lab, said they then joined the OPSEU 563 bargaining team for the Humber Support Staff Union.

They said they were hired as a student organizer for OPSEU over the summer, and worked on the zine as a 'pet project' with their friends.

“It was like a real expression of all of our feelings towards the system at the time, and also a space where we could write about things we couldn’t publish anywhere else,” Marculewicz said.

Usman Malik, a Humber librarian and the second vice-president of the Humber Faculty Union, said he was “happy” to supervise the making of the zine.

“So the zine came up as one avenue of organizing students, as a tool to communicate,” Malik said.

He said the union printed some copies of the zine and handed it out at tabling events.

Malik said OPSEU student organizers work to “share our message with the student body, and sort of join our two movements.”

“So they basically try to speak to other students about what was happening in Ontario with the defunding of education, and part of that is the cuts to OSAP, also part of that is the closure of programs at various colleges and layoffs,” he said.

Marculewicz said they mostly worked with the faculty union and not the part-time support union because it had more resources.

They gave credit to their friend, who wished to remain anonymous, for the design work.

Marculewicz said the first issue went through multiple iterations before they settled on the design.

The zine covers topics such as the three levels of government, how to contact a representative, and how to start a petition.

Miloš Vasic, Humber professor and president of the Humber Faculty Union, said the zine was a great initiative.

Vasic said he loves how it addresses the “intersection between faculty issues and student issues.

“There is a common enemy out there, if you want to use that kind of war metaphor. And that enemy is the provincial government,” he said.

“So I think it’s really important for both workers, whether it be profs or support staff, and students to kind of talk about the issues that matter together. And this zine, I think, is a perfect opportunity to hit on some of those concerns,” Vasic said.

“If students cannot afford to pay for the tuition because OSAP has been gutted, that’s not simply a student issue, that’s a faculty issue as well and a support staff issue,” he said.

Vasic said the union has “tried for many years” to connect with students.

“This is a more sustained way, I hope, of aligning with student interests,” he said.

“If the cost of living is hurting students, that concerns all of us as faculty,” Vasic said.

“The sooner that we can recognize that student interests align with faculty interests, the sooner we can save the system from itself,” he said.

Marculewicz said that “there’s a difference between caring for your neighbour and showing up for your neighbour.”

“I want to be there at the food bank. I want to be there educating people on politics. I want to be there helping people in a way that actually matters, and will matter for people in the future,” they said.